Cale Makar had two goals and an assist in his hometown and the Colorado Avalanche beat the winless Calgary Flames 7-3 on Thursday night at the Scotiabank Saddledome, scoring three times in less than five minutes in the second period to break open a tied game. Devon Toews and Jaden Schwartz also scored twice each, Nathan MacKinnon added a goal and two assists, and Scott Wedgewood made 26 saves in his season debut, winning his 200th career NHL game as Colorado improved to 3-1-0 with a bounce-back from Wednesday’s 3-2 loss in Winnipeg. The Avalanche defence drove the offence on a night the blue line contributed to four of the seven goals, with Toews scoring twice, including a redirect of Makar’s shot-pass to open the scoring at 15:54 of the first period, and Makar ripping shots through traffic for his pair. MacKinnon’s goal, a one-timer from the high slot minutes after Colorado had pinned Calgary in its zone for nearly two minutes, made it 4-1 before the second period ended. Adam Klapka, Mikael Backlund and Kevin Bahl scored for Calgary, which fell to 0-4-0, the only NHL team yet to record a point this season. The Flames have been outscored 23-6 for a league-worst minus-17 goal differential, and Devin Cooley made 23 saves behind a defence that could not contain Colorado’s transition game once the second period tilted. Tied 1-1 after the first, the game turned at 6:45 of the second when a Toews wrist shot from the blue line eluded a screened Cooley for a lead Colorado would not relinquish. Makar doubled it at 9:16, sliding home a shot from the right face-off dot, and MacKinnon struck a couple of minutes later. Makar extended the lead five minutes into the third with another point shot, Schwartz made it 6-1 at 6:34, and after Backlund and Bahl scored 71 seconds apart to give the home crowd a brief jolt, Schwartz added his second at 9:41, on a fluky bounce off a defender’s skate, to close the scoring. Colorado has won 15 of the last 19 meetings with Calgary. There were milestones in the margins: Brent Burns recorded an assist to reach 948 career points, tying Chris Chelios for tenth on the NHL’s all-time scoring list for defencemen, and rookie T.J. Hughes collected his first career point. The Avalanche played with a fresh-look defence, with Sam Malinski sat for Noah Juulsen without obvious cost on the second night of a back-to-back. The evening carried a sombre note for the visitors: forward Logan O’Connor has taken personal leave after the sudden death of his father, former NHL player Myles O’Connor, at 59, announced by the team on Thursday. Both teams play Saturday, Colorado hosting Toronto in a game that now pairs two of the league’s most-watched offences, and Calgary hosting Anaheim still searching for its first point, with the patience of a home crowd that has watched four losses by a combined seventeen goals beginning the season already under strain.
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